The Seeker
by Cordelia McGonagall
Summary: Rose Weasley is the daughter of Hermione Granger Weasley and Ron Weasley. She is a Seeker. And she doesn't care for flying, much. Written with the gift of characters property of JK Rowling.
1. Chapter 1

First line taken from _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (_As you know. None of these characters are mine, either. Just having a bit of fun.)

"So there is little Scorpius." No one but Mum was paying attention, in the rowdiness and bustle of the platform, to notice Daddy pointing him out by name, which was a relief, really, since Draco Malfoy had never mentioned his son's name to Daddy, or talked to him about anything, for that matter.

Well, now that I think on that for a bit, I suppose Aunt Ginny, or even Uncle Harry might have assumed that Daddy had to review old Death Eater files; Merlin knows the Malfoys have been questioned, monitored, and stared at enough. I bet Scorpius had his own file from birth.

Or I guess Scorpius would have been mentioned in the society page of _The Daily Prophet_, since the Malfoys still held that captive when it wasn't overrun with the comings and goings of our family. Lucius Malfoy spent his few remaining years in Azkaban, but his wife Narcissa poured money into St. Mungo's, and even asked Uncle Neville if she could name the new counseling centre after his parents. It may have nudged her off the Aurors' watch list, after a fashion, but slowly the articles about the Malfoy family left the "Ministry Inquiries" page and poked a tentative finger into the society page. It took about fifteen years, but the Malfoy-Greengrass family were slowly claiming a more respectable spot in our community, a spot not earned by the terror Mum told us about in one of her impromptu dinnertime History of Magic lectures.

But that isn't how Daddy learned Scorpius' name, either.

He knows it...because I told him.

My magic wasn't like James', who made his stuffed Hungarian Horntail fly into his cot from across the nursery. And it wasn't like Albus', who quietly transfigured his mushy peas on his highchair tray to custard as he stared with those soulful green eyes at my bemused Aunt Ginny.

My mum, so I've been told, started to open the conversation with Daddy that their bright, curious little girl might not be a late bloomer, (for a Weasley) at five, but a Squib, and that would be okay, wouldn't it, Muggle life has a magic all of its own; she lived as a Muggle for eleven perfectly fine years...when, one evening, I leveled a gaze at Mum from across the lounge as I jerked my head up from my dollhouse, and said loudly enough to be heard over the Wizarding Wireless and my mother's muttering over her wizarding law books, "Daddy's missing supper. He is sad. He wants that shepherd's pie. He is going to Floo. In two minutes."

Mum barely looked up and murmured, "Oh, no, Rose, no, Daddy said it was going to be slow today, no, he's coming..." until the directness of my words and gaze settled in. She jerked her head up to look at me, oh, how I remember this, and stared, her mouth in a little _o_.

Then the green flames licked the fireplace and Daddy's face was there, tired and harried. "'Mione, I am so sorry. We had a break in that black-market unicorn hair case. Got to stay late. Can you save me that shepherd's pie?" He saw Mum's stunned face and frowned. "Well, I _know_ I said I would be home; this isn't how I wanted to spend the evening, either..."

Mum cut over him.

"Rose, sweetheart," she said, evenly, "come here and tell Daddy what you just said to me."

I sighed, and nestled my dolls carefully together on their tiny sofa, and wiggled down onto the hearth rug so I was nose-to-nose with my daddy's face in the green flames.

"I told Mummy you would miss supper and you would want the shepherd's pie and you would be sad and you would floo. Oh, and Daddy, I'm playing Dollhouse and I am the mummy and Scorpius Malfoy is Daddy and we are in love." And I popped up and sat criss-cross on the rug and beamed at him.

My father apparated home on the spot.


	2. Chapter 2

(None of these characters are mine. Just having a bit of fun.)

After that evening, Mum and Daddy took a hard look at their feelings about Divination. First, Mum re-read _Unfogging the Future_ from cover to cover, twice. Then she had its author, Cassandra Vablatsky, around for tea, and they, surprisingly to Daddy, became close friends. There were appointments at the Department of Mysteries; some of those appointments were mine alone. I remember a stuffy room lined with smoke-filled jars, and an impossibly old witch gave me Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans, and chuckled to herself as I carefully sorted them, flicking away the earwax, vomit, and lemon ones. "Because lemon are horrible," I sighed, and she winked at me.

I remember Mum especially looking very worried, and there were many whispered conversations over folding laundry or washing dishes that would stop when I padded into the room.

I remember this going on for a bit until one dreary afternoon at Grimmauld Place, when James, Al, Fred, and I were being organised into a long game of Hide and Seek by Teddy. Mum and Aunt Ginny were whispering again in one of the spare rooms, under the pretense of deciding whether to scorugify or purge the dusty velvet curtains. Victoire orbited them like a lonely moon, too young to listen to all the conversations of women and too old to not notice the pointless errands Aunt Ginny would assign to her. Finally, the rain stopped and we were all shooed outside to the spacious back garden which had been charmed with a multi-storey treehouse, sparkling with fairy lights.

"What's with the portrait, James?" Fred's muffled voice echoed down from the top floor of the tree.

"Say hullo to Professor Albus Dumbledore, Fred," bellowed James, as he puffed up the series of wooden steps and rope ladders to join him at the top. "The Patil family commissioned it as a present to Dad. He just got it this Remembrance Day. It, I mean, Professor Dumbledore, asked to go to the treehouse. He said he was 'tickled by the idea of a vacation home,' whatever that is supposed to mean." James shrugged as he reached Fred and the portrait, with the jumble of us clogging the rope ladder behind him.

We all straggled to the top, with me last. Dumbledore smiled and winked at us, and that small exchange being all there was to it, we picked our way back down the ladder, one at a time, following Teddy's lead to practice bludger hitting on the lawn, when the portrait whispered, "Oh, Miss Weasley, I do wish you could have saved the lemon-flavoured beans for me. They were always my favorite, lemon."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I had managed, easily, because I really was amazing at Hide and Seek, (so much so that I was sadly excluded rather early on in my independent Hide and Seek career) to hang back unnoticed with the portrait of Professor Dumbledore. I don't know how long my audience was with him, but when I made my way back down the ladder, I could hear my mother's worried voice calling for me from the door to the garden.

I ran to her, and she was shocked, as I was, I know, by the fierceness of my hug, the grip I had on her waist, my head buried in her dusty apron. Aunt Ginny was on her heels and could see my face for a moment, and she turned, retreating to the kitchen to pour me a small glass of pumpkin juice. I was so small, and I felt very new and very old all at once. I cried so hard that Aunt Ginny and Mum couldn't make sense out of me. They waited until evening to climb up the tree for a peek themselves.

Mum, and later Daddy, and even Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry, in turns and together, had several late night conversations with Professor Dumbledore's portrait over the next few weeks. He was, to everyone's surprise but Uncle Harry's, very sorry about our conversation. I guess he, even with all of his remarkable wisdom and years of teaching, was not an expert at Explaining Big Things To Small People. But Mum, as a muggleborn witch, and Uncle Harry, The Boy Who Lived, were much better suited to taking the wisdom Dumbledore had wanted me to have and making it understandable to a very small witch. And yes, I am a witch, for after I had caught my breath and choked down the pumpkin juice, I breathed into the air, "Oh, Daddy, don't cry tonight. I am sorry. I will stop crying now." And I curled up on the couch for a nap. It was a beautiful, dreamless sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The witch at the Department of Mysteries suggested that Mum and Dad buy me a pensive, but they were not keen on me decanting my memories into bottles just yet. So I kept - I keep a diary to help me see patterns. Sometimes it helps me let the visions go; if they live on a page, they can leave my brain in peace. Looking back, I see that I have always been obsessed with what I don't know, and what I know, and which was which...which isn't as clear cut to this witch...or anyone, as you might suspect.

One of the many habits I inherited from Mum is the need to make lists. I wrote this list after Mum and Dad were first able to really explain everything they had learned from Dumbledore, from Cassandra Vablansky, from the Department of Mysteries...everything they did know, and some they wouldn't know. I think I was eight or nine.

_1. Professor Dumbledore says "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." I don't know what that means. Mummy says a muggle wrote this._

_2. Mummy says this means I am responsible for what I do in life._

_3. I know I see things sometimes that happen later._

_4. Daddy says this means I am a Seer, like Auntie Cassandra, who is nice._

_5. Mummy says we only know what is true when we know it in the now._

_6. Daddy says there is a reason why it is not called The Department Of Things We Have All Figured Out._

_7. I am not sure I want to marry a boy named Scorpius. I don't know him. It's nice to be married. Daddy says Mummy makes him want to be good. I want to make someone want to be good. Talking about Scorpius makes Daddy upset even though he says he's not, and I don't know why._

_8. James is going to fall off his broom tomorrow. I told Uncle Harry. James is mad, and I don't see why. He won't fall if he doesn't fly._

_9. When I told about James, Uncle Harry called me a Seeker. That is weird. I don't like flying or quidditch. Quidditch is boring and scary and sweaty._


End file.
